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Accommodating the diversity of learners in mainstream schooling and providing high quality education for all, inclusive education is prioritised at international and European levels as a human rights issue and as a reform strategy which tackles inequalities and promotes social cohesion within both schools and wider society. This book advances critical realist ideas in empirical research in order to close the theory-practice gap and shift the emphasis from epistemology to ontology with regard to teachers' empowerment to provide inclusive education. With a focus on the school context rather than the agency of the individual teacher, the authors use empirical data from case studies to demonstrate teachers' disempowerment as real, and rooted in features of reality. Offering a unified critical realist model, the book challenges taken-for-granted ideas and practices concerning the empowerment of teachers in inclusive education and seeks to set the ground for a more holistic and inclusive educational change.
List of contents
1. Introduction
2. Inclusive Education
3. Empowerment, Social Contexts and Power Relations
4. Critical Realism and the Notion of Empowerment
5. Methodological Choices in Educational Research
6. Kappa, Delta, Zeta and Omega Case Studies
7. Empowering and Disempowering Contexts
8. Post-Conflict Retroductions and Teacher Empowerments
About the author
Areti Stylianou is a curriculum development officer, working at the Pedagogical Institute of Cyprus. She has published articles in a number of journals, including the International Journal of Inclusive Education and British Journal of Educational Studies.
David Scott is Emeritus Professor of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment at the Institute of Education, University College London. He is co-author of Equalities and Inequalities in the English Education System (2018).
Summary
This book advances critical realist ideas in empirical research in order to close the theory-practice gap and shift the emphasis from epistemology to ontology with regard to teachers’ empowerment to provide inclusive education.
